Renewal, by Irvin Desir (St. Lucia), was published by Papillote Press in January 2026. Much admired by the St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the poetry of his fellow islander Irvin Desir (1954-2024) was little known in his lifetime. With an introduction by Vladimir Lucien, “this posthumous collection is a revelation.”
Irvin Desir was born in Saint Lucia in 1954, the fourth of five children. He was educated at the island’s St Mary’s College. He lived most of life on his home island apart from time spent in Martinique and Barbados. He died in Castries, Saint Lucia, in 2024.
Canisia Lubrin (poet and winner of the Carol Shields Award for fiction, 2025, for Code Noir) says, “Renewal is poetry of rare gifts. It unfurls as hymn and closes as folklore, both personal and transcendent. Desir’s diamantine lines, marked with the sensual largesse of nature and the surreal, extend the poetry of a Saint Lucia belonging at once to no one and everyone, one ‘of shades and shadows’.”
Alison Donnell (author of Lost and Found) writes, “Bringing Irvin Desir’s poetry back into light is like revealing a hidden gem that never knew its own brilliance. This edition is a great service to Saint Lucian literary history.”
For more information, see https://www.papillotepress.co.uk/books/renewal/
Renewal, by Irvin Desir (St. Lucia), was published by Papillote Press in January 2026. Much admired by the St Lucian Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the poetry of his fellow islander Irvin Desir (1954-2024) was little known in his lifetime. With an introduction by Vladimir Lucien, “this posthumous collection is a revelation.” Irvin Desir was born in